Living in the Age of Extremism

I want you to try an idea on for size. Have your brain wear it around for a bit, and see how it fits.

When the Berlin Wall fell, many wondered what would replace the Cold War as the framework of the international system. What would follow the worldwide, multi-dimensional struggle between communism and capitalism? Theoreticians and writers floated many ideas, but the most instructive ones, in my view, have come from those describing the accelerating process of markets, politics, technologies, peoples and cultures becoming ever more integrated, democratic and internationalized.

This globalization process--and the resulting tensions--has been the focus of writers like Benjamin Barber and Thomas Friedman. In his best seller “The Lexus and the Olive Tree”, Friedman characterized globalization as “the big story” for the new century and described its good and bad effects. Barber’s book, delved more into the darker side of globalization and its capacity for destructive assimilation. Both warned of a backlash.

For obvious reasons, the over-arching view of the post-September 11 world is now mostly expressed in terms of the War on Terrorism. But in many ways this focus on terror has obscured the notion of globalization and resistance to it as the central struggle of our time. So lets pull back a bit from “terrorism” (which today almost exclusively means Islamic terrorism) to look more broadly at “extremism”.

There’s no doubt that radical Islamic terrorists are deadly and dangerous. But they can be viewed as part of a wider, international trend--that of violent reaction against seemingly inexorable forces of globalization. And it is that wider combination of forces and ideologies arrayed against globalization that have started to make me think in a different way.

Here’s the idea I want you to try out: The old political spectrum of left vs. right, communist world vs. free world, socialism vs. capitalism, was a Cold War construct and is obsolete. Instead, picture the linear, left-right spectrum bent into a circle--with left and right still in their relative positions but now with pragmatists/moderates/rationalists from both sides grouped at the top of the circle and extremists/radicals of far left or far right clustered at the bottom. That polarity--extremists vs. rationalists--represents a new spectrum.

In what I’ll call the “rationalist” camp, you have those supporting western-style democracy, free trade, cultural openness, rule of law, free market investment, etc. In short, while recognizing its problems, they see globalization as more of a positive force than a negative one and want to participate in it. At the opposite end, you have those who view globalization as a destructive force--one to be opposed by any means, including violence. This is the “extremist” end of the spectrum. Islamic terrorists represent just one flavor of the extremist ideology that contemplates not just resisting globalization but destroying the entire system. There are other extremist flavors as well:

• Last week, I mentioned the Maoists in Nepal who see modernization as a great obstacle to their goal of an agrarian-based, pre-industrial society. The world saw what the Maoist Khmer Rouge did in pursuit of this in Cambodia, and today there are Maoist movements in Peru, India, the Philippines willing to maim, kill and destroy to turn the clock back. Think of them as the far left, “red block” of extremism.
• Radical environmentalists, and groups such as the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) form the “green” wing of the extremist pole. Radical animal rights activists could fit here as well. Their actions have included burning SUVs, destroying housing projects, spiking trees to injure loggers, and trashing medical research labs.
• Today there is an active worldwide Anarchist movement--black is their symbol--which defies categorization in terms of right or left. Anarchists believe all authority, all government, leads to immoral behavior of those in power. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, anarchists were known for blowing up autocrats with homemade bombs. Today they’re known for property destruction and violent tactics during anti-globalization riots.
• Then there are far-right extremists such as the Neo-Nazis in Europe, the Aryan Nation in the U.S., and other like-minded fascist/racist groups that combine hatred of foreigners and immigrants, rabid racism and anti-Semitism, and virulent anti-government rhetoric with a propensity for paramilitary training and hording weapons. We’ll call them the “browns”.

In terms of their opposition to globalization, their extremist views, and their proclivity for violence, these groups/ideologies can be seen as a sort of twisted “rainbow coalition”--red, green, black and brown--that occupy the far end of a new political spectrum in the 21st century. Where do you fit?

T.T.

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